A Progressive Perspective: The Democrats Could Lose in 2020

Donald Trump has been, by far, the worst President in my lifetime. I’ve previously described him as nefarious, wicked, evil, vile, foul, abominable, odious, depraved, monstrous, fiendish, diabolical, unspeakable and despicable. He is an amoral lying unethical demagogue who has no compulsion what-so-ever to use racism and xenophobia to further his aims. Yet, I believe there is a good chance he will be re-elected President in 2020, in spite of the Democrats excellent showing in the mid-year elections.

There are multiple reasons the Democrats could lose. First, they have too many candidates running and no clear cut front-runner. All of the potential Democratic candidates in the historically diverse field have flaws; some are too old (Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg); too young (Pete Buttigieg, Tulsi Gabbard and and Beto O’Rouke); too boring (Kristen Gillibrand, Sherod Brown, John Hickenlooper, Amy Klobachar, Julian Castro); too progressive (Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke); too inexperienced (Howard Schultz) too centrist (Michael Bloomberg, Daval Patrick and Joe Bidden). As a result, the candidate that emerges from what will probably be a long grueling primary season will be severely bruised and not be the first-choice of the vast majority of the party. There will be no consensus candidate with broad appeal within the party.

The second reason the Democrats could lose is they could come out of their convention as a fractured party, split along ideological lines between the center-left and the democratic-socialist wings. While there is potential for a ticket that spans the ideological spectrum, the likelihood of a ticket healing the wounds is not likely.

An ideologically-split party could have a difficult time producing a ticket with a fresh appealing message. Humorist Will Rogers’s words could be prophetic in 2020: “I am not a member of any organized political party, I am a Democrat.” If there is a split, it could prompt a moderate third-party candidate like Howard Schultz to enter the race. This would be absolute disaster for Democrats, as his candidacy, like that of Ralph Nader, would only take votes away from the Democratic nominee and not President Trump.

A third reason they the Democrats could lose are if they fixate on investigating President Trump, even if the Mueller investigation does not turn-up a smoking gun with regard to collusion with the Russians. The do not want to come across as the party of investigation, not legislation.

There have already been seven officials in the Trump campaign and his administration who have been indicted. Nailing another 2-3 low-level Trump campaign operatives isn’t going to turn Trump’s supporters against him. His base would probably be with him even if it were found-out that Donald Jr. knew the Russians were putting out damming emails on Hillary Clinton. His supporter’s distain for Hillary Clinton is so intense that they would simply pawn it off as utilizing typical “opposition research.”

The fourth reason the Democrats could lose is if they do not win by a huge margin among women and minority voters. Given Trump’s divisive rhetoric and disturbing actions against these groups, one would think this should be a piece of cake. However, if women and/or a minority aren’t selected to head or be on the ticket, there could be a backlash which would not produce the votes need to ensure a Democratic victory.

The fifth possible way the Democrats could lose is if they allow President Trump to make the election a referendum on whether the United States should become a socialist country. In his State of the Union speech, the President said: “Here in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country.” He added, “American was founded on liberty and independence – not government coercions, domination, and control. We are born free, and will stay free.”

At its core America is a centrist country. For this reason, Democrats need to avoid, at all cost, getting into a debate with Donald Trump over the virtues of democratic socialism and how it has worked well in many countries throughout the world and substantially reduced income inequality. Instead, Democrats should be pointing out the enormous harm done throughout the world by totalitarian communism in places such as Russia and North Korea by dictators like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jung-un, who President Trump periodically expresses admiration for.

Instead of speaking about the virtues of socialism, the Democrats should focus on what they would do to make capitalism work better for working-class Americans not, just for CEOs and shareholders. The focus should be on “smart capitalism” that adequately regulates markets, protects consumers and the environment and understands that all can benefit from the profits when unions and management co-exist. Leave it to President Trump to champion an economic system that only allow the top 10 percent of Americans to prosper and the remaining 90% to not share in new income growth they helped to create. The Democrats should be presenting fresh new ideas that will reduce soaring health costs, restore the American dream, repair our aging infrastructure and reduce increasing income inequality.

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